At the time of its founding, the Max-Reger-Institut held no archival or financial resources. In fact, after Elsa Reger’s death the institute did not inherit any single manuscript or other Regeriana. Yet thanks to extensive research many a manuscript has come to light and has been procured for the institute, contributing to a growing number of acquisitions. This has resulted in a materially and musicologically most valuable collection documenting the entire life and work of the composer.
The archive of the Max-Reger-Institut is open to anyone interested and is used by scholars and artists from throughout the world.
Through the increased esteem of Reger – and therefore of his autograph manuscripts – donations are urgently required for the further expansion of the collection.

Music manuscripts

About one third of all currently known sources of Reger’s original compositions counting up to op. 146 and without opus number, as well as his arrangements and editions of music by others are owned by the Max-Reger-Institut – further manuscripts are located in public libraries, archives and private collections all over the world. The collection of the Max-Reger-Institut amounts to important original scores intended for printing, such as the Sinfonietta, Op. 90, the Symphonischer Prolog zu einer Tragödie, Op. 108, the Konzert im alten Stil, Op. 123, the String Quartet in D minor, Op. 74, the Piano Trio in E minor, Op. 102 as well as the String Trios, Opp. 77b und 144b. In the field of organ works, the Max-Reger-Institut owns several important manuscripts intended for the engravers (Suite in E minor, Op. 16, Variations and Fugue on an original theme, Op. 73 and Introduktion, Passcaglia and Fugue in E minor, Op. 127) but also such manuscripts that Reger created for the organist Karl Straube (Chorale Fantasias, Opp. 27, 30, 40 and 52, Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, Op. 29, Organ Sonata in F sharp minor, Op. 33, Fantasia and Fugue on BACH, Op. 46). Several further music manuscripts of diverse genres and periods of creation and a comprehensive collection of drafts and sketches complement the collection and illuminate not least Reger’s extensive activities as arranger and editor of the music of others.
Apart from these original manuscripts, the Max-Reger-Institut has been collecting photocopies or digitizations of all further relevant sources in public and private collections ever known past and present, which can be consulted alongside the institute’s original collection upon application.​

Correspondence and documents

Another central section of the Max-Reger-Institut archive is, apart from the music manuscripts, the original letters and documents written by Reger (letters directed to Reger only in very few cases have survived since the composer hardly ever retained them after he had responded to them). This correspondence comprises contacts with publishers, concert agents, performers, poets, friends and numerous other persons. Currently the Max-Reger-Institut owns about 2,500 such postal items as well as c500 documents of the most diverse kind, ranging from his article Hugo Wolfs künstlerischer Nachlass Schriften A3 via visitor’s cards, concert diaries, vaccination statements, contracts with publishers, last wills and testaments or buying contracts of the Jena Reger Villa right up to documents on insurance and accounts matters.
Further to such original documents postal items and documents in other public or private collections are consultable at the Max-Reger-Institut in photocopy or transcript. These postal items are catalogued in the Reger-Briefe-Verzeichnis.
In addition to Max Reger’s correspondence the Max-Reger-Institut holds a huge collection of letters from the estate of Elsa Reger as well as several other personalities from Reger’s closer and wider circle, such as Fritz Stein, Karl Hasse, Rudolf Huesgen oder Paul Aron.

Photographs, paintings, drawings, caricatures, and memorabilia of most different kind

Apart from letters and documents the Max-Reger-Institut collection comprises naturally also a considerable iconographic department, from photographs and contemporary and posthumous aorks of art and caricatures right up to memorabilia of the most diverse kind. Of particular value are several albums of photographs formerly in the possession of Elsa Reger, containing several hitherto unpublished snapshots.

Concert programmes and reviews

An important means of research is the collection of concert programmes and reviews, not just comprising the period of Reger’s lifetime but also, if possible, carried on well into the present. While performances of Reger’s music are no longer to be reported to the Max-Reger-Institut after the expiring of copyright, our holdings are steadily expanded into this respect.

Reger’s published music in first and later editions

The Max-Reger-Institut owns a large collection of music editions of all of Max Reger’s works and is actively involved not only in the new Reger-Werkausgabe, but also initiates, if possible, facsimile edition or supports new editions beyond the Max-Reger-Institut publications.

International literature on Reger

A comprehensive research library offers the majority of any worldwide publications on Max Reger, not least because hardly any substantial publication on Reger is created without contacting the Max-Reger-Institut. The library may be consulted upon application.

CDs, records and tapes, as well as Welte music rolls with Reger performing his own piano and organ music

The Max-Reger-Institut endeavours to collect all recordings of Reger works ever published worldwide, and to make available any of the analogous publication digitally. Several historic recordings never before released on CD have been released in co-operation with the Max-Reger-Institut.
Part of the Sound Archive are the piano and organ recordings Reger made on Welte in a kind of pre-digital technique in 1905 and 1913 respectively. The original organ roles owned by the Max-Reger-Institut (from which the commercial roles were dubbed) were digitized in 2013 in connection with an international research project.

Further collections in the Max-Reger-Institut

Apart from the comprehensive holdings directly related to Max Reger, the Max-Reger-Institut owns a huge array of collections deriving from Reger’s circle. Often they relate to pupils, interpreters or scholars devoted to the composer or in part closely connected to the Max-Reger-Institut, such as Fritz Stein, Hermann Poppen, Karl Hasse, or Arno Landmann. The most substantial such collection is the BuschBrothersArchive.